


Taster Menu

by nerddowell



Category: Versailles (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Philippe is a small gay nerd with a crush, Starbucks, barista Chevalier, barista Liselotte, but he wears amazing underpants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 13:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11208597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: Philippe falls on his ass in front of Chev, the new barista at Liselotte's Starbucks, and it's love at first sight.





	Taster Menu

**Author's Note:**

> LISELOTTE IS THE BEST I LOVE HER

A banging and clattering in the hallway, accompanied by angry mutterings in German, woke him up. Philippe didn’t even get out of bed to pull back the curtains properly; he simply stretched out just enough to twitch one side back and blink blearily out at the white world outside before groaning heavily and flopping over in bed, giving another, louder moan of displeasure for his housemates’ benefit. Their tiny ground-floor student flat had managed to get snowed in, and from the sounds of it Liselotte was struggling to get out of the house to get to work. Louis would argue that her job wasn’t anything essential, and that the citizens of Paris could manage without their Starbucks for one day if she couldn’t get in to open up. Philippe, who liked to spend his time as a hellishly busy student as caffeinated as possible, was more sympathetic to the capital’s other caffeine addicts and disagreed. Nevertheless, he got up, wrapped in his blanket like a hibernating creature, and opened his door to offer to help.

Liselotte was standing, panting and red-faced, in the hallway. She was side-on like she was ready to break the door down with her shoulder, otherwise completely unperturbed by the appearance of a duvet Michelin Man in the door jamb of her housemate’s room. She checked her watch again and cursed again in German, and Philippe figured that the lock had probably frozen again and offered to make her a cup of tea in the meantime.

‘What am I supposed to do with that?’ she asked, ‘I’m ten minutes late opening as it is.’

‘You could pour it into the keyhole,’ Philippe said from among his mound of blankets, ‘that might help.’ He stumbled towards the kitchen anyway, fully intending to make himself a coffee even if Liselotte didn’t want anything, and he set the kettle boiling and fumbled through the cupboard to find the Kenco before discovering the pot horribly, heinously empty.

He dropped the covers in shock and squawked at the cold, drawing Liselotte out of the hallway and into the kitchen, where she then yelled and covered her eyes.

‘Jesus, Philippe, decency!’

‘I’ve got briefs on!’ he protested, but to be honest, _briefs_ was an extremely generous word for the underwear currently barely smuggling his budgie, as Rohan would say. They were a gift last Christmas from an ex-boyfriend and exposed most of his arse, sitting so low on his hips that his pubes (neatly trimmed) were showing above the waistband, and hugged every single line and curve of his cock and balls. Still, they were comfortable, so he wore them whenever they were clean and even bought a couple more pairs for nights when he thought he might for once get laid.

‘I can tell just by looking that you’re not Jewish!’ Liselotte said, still hiding her eyes.

‘Would you prefer I take them off?’

‘God no, just… I’m leaving. I’m leaving the room and you and your itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini briefs behind.’ She spun on her sensible work heel and left the kitchen with a bang of the door, and Philippe shivered, picking his duvet up off the floor and gazing mournfully at his empty coffee jar on the counter.

‘Wait, wait! I’ll help dig us out if you let me come grab a coffee with you.’ He shuffled to his room and threw his chunkiest sweater and skinniest jeans on, toeing into his Chelsea boots before exiting his bedroom to present himself to her.

‘Better?’

‘Well, I can look at you without it being revealed that your underwear is castrating you slowly,’ she said with one eyebrow raised, ‘which is a bonus.’

‘I’ll take that,’ he said, and forced the door open, faceplanting right into a mound of snow that immediately slipped wetly down the neck and back of his sweater and filled his boots. Struggling out of the snowdrift he shuddered uncomfortably, trying to wriggle all of the snow out of his clothes, whilst Liselotte hid a grin behind her hand and shook her head fondly, wrapping a scarf around her neck and grabbing her mittens from the coat hooks. She stepped out into the world in a German hunting hat with ear flaps, mittens, a coat, scarf, two pairs of thick tights, and the sturdiest boots Philippe had ever seen – essentially, a well-prepared woman. She gave him a beaming smile as she locked the door behind them and crunched down the drive, crossing the city square towards the Starbucks on the corner.

Philippe followed, still shivering, and tried not to skid too much on the icy patches in his boots, which were made more for fashion than for grip in snowy climes. He debated delaying his first caffeine intake of the day long enough to try and hunt down his own hiking boots, a gift long ago from Louis when his brother tried to get him to take an interest in more manly pursuits, but he could feel the tiredness headache already setting in and decided coffee was much more important than maintaining bodily warmth. At least the Starbucks would be warm once Liselotte turned the thermostat on.

The Starbucks was already up and running from what he could see, as Liselotte entered the shop without needing to use her key and was greeted at the door by one of the other baristas, a guy with curly blond hair in the expected green apron. There was an enormous patch of ice, however, right outside the door – which Liselotte skated over, no problem, in her boots – which seemed destined to make Philippe fall on his arse for the second time that day. Worse, the hot barista that Liselotte worked with was staring aimlessly out of the window at the exact moment that Philippe lost his footing and went arse-over-tit on the pavement, banging his tailbone on unforgiving concrete and bringing tears to his eyes.

Liselotte came running outside to give him a hand up, but the other barista beat her to it, extending a hand graciously with a charming smile. The name on his badge read ‘Chev’, but Philippe was too busy swimming in his deep blue eyes and all those other ridiculous romantic clichés as the barista helped him up and brushed the snow off him (spending, in Philippe’s opinion, both far too much and far too little time getting every last wet speck off his arse).

‘Falling for me already?’

Philippe tried to say ‘No,’ and then ‘Maybe’, but it came out as ‘Mugh’, and he cursed every plane he existed on and swallowed hard, feeling the entirely unwelcome blush rising up his cheeks. Thankfully they were already pink from the cold, so at least he could blame that on the weather, but the tongue-tied-ness and the inability to look directly at nor away from Chev was all him and his ridiculous, traitorous heart, which had skipped three beats when Chev picked him up off the pavement and hadn’t yet got back into any sort of normal rhythm.

He shrugged Chev away with an awkward smile and ducked inside, where Liselotte took him straight over to the bar and fixed him up the biggest, sugariest coffee possible for free to make up for the accident outside. Despite the fact that it wasn’t actually her fault, if her feeling responsible meant he was going to get free coffee, he wasn’t going to complain. In fact, he hammed up the extent of his injury to gain extra sympathy before she told him to stop being a drama queen and that it was only a light tumble. Affronted, he spun around on the stool to stare at her.

‘A light tumble? I could have cracked my head open!’

‘But you didn’t, although people would think you had from the way you’re going on about it!’ She said smartly, banging the coffee tray on the counter to loosen the grounds before emptying it out. She steamed a pot of milk for a latte Chev had requested in the quiet time until more customers came in and dumped four pumps of vanilla syrup in the bottom of a mug. Philippe watched her make the coffee dully, his mind on Chev and the way he’d come to his rescue like a knight in shining armour. Or a knight in shining apron at least.

‘I still think you should be showing more sympathy.’

‘Sorry, you’ve used up your sympathy quota for the day. One ridiculous heart attack in a cup coffee and a ‘there, there’ pat is all you get.’ She patted his head patronisingly. ‘There, there, Philippe.’

Chev ambled around the corner of the bar carrying several mugs still steaming from the dishwasher. ‘I could always kiss it better,’ he said with a waggle of his eyebrows, and Philippe turned scarlet, tripping over his tongue as he tried to say ‘That’s not necessary, thanks,’ and ending up with another garbled string of half-syllables.

‘Nuh,’ he managed at last, and the Chevalier grinned at him.

‘Shame.’  


* * *

  
From that day on, Philippe stopped by every day to get a coffee on the way to his first class of the day and another on the way home. He quickly learned that the only regularly scheduled days Chev was in for were Wednesdays and Fridays, but the curly head of blond hair still occasionally cropped up at other times as well. Liselotte was being a terrible friend/wingwoman and refusing to share the staff schedules with him to help organise his visits, calling him a ‘first degree stalker’, but since she still grudgingly let him come in a couple of minutes early when both she and Chev were on the morning shift, to let him get a coffee with time to sit and chat before class, he didn’t complain too much.

Philippe was working his way slowly through everything on the menu, having arrived today at the green tea latte (his first foray into matcha, which he had heard was almost as good as coffee for caffeination but better in antioxidants and all that shit healthcare stores cared about), and was taking a cautious sip when Chev leaned over the bar and flicked a lock of Philippe’s hair out of his eyes with long, dexterous fingers. Philippe looked up from the Stephen King novel he was reading to meet his gaze, quickly looking back down at the page as his cheeks flushed. Damn it, he was sure it was an almost Pavlovian response now that whenever Chev looked at him, he blushed like a preteen girl with her first crush.

‘What are you reading?’

Miraculously, this time Philippe actually managed to form words. ‘Carrie,’ he mumbled, raising the book to show Chev the cover, and the barista nodded as he sorted the cups by the coffee machine. Philippe stared down at the pages, tangling one hand in his hair, cut cheekbone-length and tousled-ish-curly. It was a nervous habit he’d had since childhood, when he used to plait it until his mother cut it because she was sick of having people say what a beautiful little girl she had. He’d spent a few years as a preteen wondering if he maybe was a girl, really, since he’d loved dolls and wearing dresses and makeup, so unlike Louis with his football obsession and his girl-chasing. All the same, upon growing up a little, he’d realised that although he liked playing at being a girl, he definitely didn’t want the body parts and societal expectations that came with it, and that he was comfortable with the body he had. He just bought himself beautiful things every so often, wearing them in the privacy of his room or slipping his lingerie on under whatever he was wearing for a small thrill during the college day.

Of course, the other thing Philippe had realised that separated him from ‘most boys’ his age had been the fact that his affections were only ever directed towards other men. He’d tried hard to find the girls at school more than cute in a soft yet distantly unappealing way, but it had never worked. Meanwhile there was a dark-haired jock on Louis’ high school football squad that had set his pulse racing and his heart a-flutter as a thirteen year old, providing Philippe with his first ever crush and first ever heartbreak. (He’d seen the boy, a _seconde_ with his brother, kissing a pretty blonde girl with his hands up her shirt behind the science labs late after school when he came to see Louis play.)

Chev pulled him away from his ruminations by lowering the book with one fingertip, his eyes twinkling. Jesus, Philippe sounded like a terrible romance novel.

‘Are you ever going to decide on a usual so I can learn what to expect?’

‘I haven’t tried everything yet. How will I know what’s my favourite if I don’t try everything?’ Philippe mumbled again, picking at a thread of wool on the cuff of his jumper, and Chev laughed, shaking one of the squirty cream canisters vigorously before testing it on the counter and putting it in the fridge. He swiped his little finger through the fluffy line of cream and proffered it to Philippe, smiling.

‘Try it. It’s fudge flavoured.’

Philippe looked from him, to the finger smeared with cream, to Chev’s face. His stomach was tying itself in knots and his tongue was following suit, trying to stop him from yelling how much he wanted to make out with Chev right there on the bar, laid down so the barista could cover him in that stupid cream if he wanted, so long as he licked it off again afterwards –

He caught Liselotte’s eye, who was smirking knowingly as she busied herself with the filter coffee machine, grinding a new bag of beans, and his face flamed. Clearly it had been far too long since he last got laid if he was having decidedly non-PG-13 daydreams about handsome baristas and their canisters of fudge-flavoured whipped cream. He glanced back at Chev and shook his head, offering a tight, awkward smile, and Chev shrugged, sucking the cream off his finger before walking to the other end of the bar and messing around in the pastry cabinet.  Reordering the muffins – which even Philippe could tell was completely unnecessary – he didn’t spare another glance towards Philippe.

Philippe’s phone vibrated a couple of seconds later, and he pulled it out to read a text from Liselotte.

 **From:** Liselotte 11:03 _  
Just ask him out already. It’s embarrassing for me just watching you. L x_

 **To:** Liselotte 11:05 _  
For someone who purports to be my friend, you’re embarrassed by me very easily. And you know that I literally could never do that, right? You’re talking to the guy who tried to ask out that bartender from the student club and vomited all over him instead despite being stone cold sober._

 **From:** Liselotte 11:08 _  
I remember that unfortunate incident, yes. Still. Carpe diem. L x_

 **From:** Liselotte 11:08 _  
… Carpe dick? L x_

 _I hate you and hereby renounce you as a friend_ , Philippe texted back, before pocketing his phone and taking his coffee to go.  


* * *

  
As much as Philippe would have liked to pretend otherwise, by the third _month_ of awkwardly stalking Chev at Starbucks and tasting the entire menu (he’d since decided on the plain latte with Christmas blend coffee as his favourite), a nightly search for curly-haired men on youporngay and a box of tissues were no longer cutting it, and he was going to have to face up to it. Liselotte was certainly getting sick of his ‘moping and mooning about’ in the Starbucks nearly every day. She’d even threatened to bar him before he mentioned that he could probably go to one of those television-advertised injury lawyers and raise the issue of the unsalted, un-de-iced front step which he had nearly cracked his head open on when he’d slipped back in November, and she’d grudgingly dropped it. Nevertheless, he was determined that today would be the day when he left the house for the coffee shop that morning.

He chickened out approximately .2 seconds after catching sight of Chev. His palms were sweaty, his face was clammy, he felt sick and his heart was racing. There was no way he could ask Chev out in this state; he’d be lucky if he only vomited on him. He felt about ready to vomit his entire body up, turn himself inside out so that he never had to look at or speak to Chev again, and he could make an honest living as a circus sideshow freak – ‘the boy in love’. Love. Good grief. He’d dropped the L-word already (not the tv series, although he had stood on Liselotte’s season 2 box and snapped two of the discs completely in half).

He stepped through the doorway, taking a deep breath and feeling the scent of coffee and spices surrounding his senses. The only barista on duty this morning was Chev, and he was standing behind the till writing the upcoming taster specials on the blackboard in chalk pen when Philippe entered. His apron strings were tied into a sloppy bow perfectly highlighting his truly magnificent arse in black skinny jeans, and Philippe tried not to let his sigh of joy disturb Chev from what he was doing. Unfortunately, Philippe then tripped over his own tongue (or more accurately his bootlace) and fell on top of a merchandise stand, scattering Starbucks-logo tumblers (thankfully plastic) all over the floor. Chev turned around and immediately knelt down, starting to pick them up and restack the shelves. Philippe helped awkwardly, reaching under a cabinet to retrieve the lid of one tumbler.

‘Sorry.’

‘You’ve got kind of a knack for this, haven’t you? Are you always this clumsy?’

 _Only around you_ , Philippe thought regretfully, but shook his head. Once all the stock had been arranged back on the shelf, he approached the till, lingering in front of the pastry case for a moment to decide on a snack before turning back to order.

‘The usual?’ Chev asked him, already with a paper cup and sharpie in hand, pen poised to write the order down.

‘Uh – uh, yeah. Yes. Please,’ Philippe stammered, toying with the edge of his phone case. ‘And a cinnamon roll.’

‘Good choice.’ Chev rang it up for him and gestured for Philippe to use his app to pay. ‘You must nearly have enough points for a reward by now, surely?’

‘Yeah,’ Philippe mumbled, neglecting to mention that he’d had enough points for a reward by the fifth day he’d come in, and that he’d got nine or ten bonus rewards coupons piled up in the app notifications but just didn’t want to use them. It felt pointless getting free things when he could realistically more than afford to pay for everything, and Liselotte had told him how much of a pain the rewards could be to ring through because the computer system never seemed to recognise the barcode on the first try, or even the third. He didn’t want to be one of _those_ customers, especially not for Chev.

He settled at one of the window tables to wait for his drink, opening his laptop to get some of his university work done as exam season was creeping up on him quickly and he was behind in Latin and Classical literature. He was opening the first of many Jstor articles he’d been set as reading when Liselotte’s Facebook chat head started flashing.

_You just need to go for it. Honestly, you need a boyfriend or a casual lay or literally anything that will stop you mooning about like Juliet on her balcony. Oh Chevy, my Chevy, wherefore art thou Chevy!_

**I can’t believe you mixed Walt Whitman with Shakespeare. And you call yourself a Literature student?**

_Walt Whitman: gayest poet ever + Juliet: most melodramatic woman ever = pining Philippe. Man up and ask him out, or I’ll sign you up for Tinder._

**You wouldn’t dare.**

_Try me._

**You’re a witch and I despise you.**

_Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble… I see frat-house fuckboys and unsolicited dick pics in Macbeth’s future_.

He shot a glance at Chev behind the bar, who was writing down the next customer’s drink as he made one up at the machine. He grabbed a lid from the rack at the side of the machine before calling Philippe’s name and placing the drink on the collection counter. Philippe swallowed, steeled himself, and walked up to the counter to get his coffee. He even opened his mouth ready to say it, but Chev was already taking another customer’s order and he felt his chance disappearing into thin air. He walked back to his table and sat back down in front of the article, trying to make sense of this ridiculous Marxist reading of the Epic of Gilgamesh – the things scholars got paid to write and publish nowadays! – and took a gulp of his coffee, slipping the sleeve up and down the cup idly.

Numbers in Chev’s familiar messy hand caught his eye, and he went over it with wide eyes. _04 84 93 56 21 Chev_. His heart stuttered in his chest. He couldn’t believe it. He glanced quickly over at Chev, who winked from behind the till, and his stomach did a flip. He’d actually managed to get Chev’s number, completely bypassing the inevitably awkward scene where Philippe, never adept at asking out anyone he fancied, attempted to ask out someone he fancied and inevitably made a total and utter fool of himself by – god only knows what he would’ve done, probably slipped and brained himself on the counter to lie unconscious and in need of resuscitation on the floor.

He closed the article tab and switched over to Facebook messenger, where Liselotte’s tab was still flashing.

_Please tell me you’ve done it?_

**I didn’t do it, but he did give me his number.**

_Thank God for that. In fact I might actually go to church and offer a real prayer. Clearly divine intervention was the only way you two were ever going to get together and put me out of my misery._

Philippe just smiled, turning the cup in his hands.  


* * *

  
Of course, the course of true love never did run smooth. By which Philippe meant that Louis came, unannounced, for a visit that weekend and had taken it upon himself to have cleaners come in and clean not only the communal areas, but the whole house. Liselotte, with her Teutonic efficiency at keeping everything spick and span, was left with her room untouched. Philippe, on the other hand, who occasionally had had to wade through rejected scraps of artwork and leftover pizza boxes to reach his bedroom door, had had his entire bedroom deep-cleaned because Louis refused to reside even for a night in a room where nobody was sure anymore what colour the carpet had been when they first arrived. The cleaners had mothballed his wardrobe, cleaned the windows, vacuumed the curtains, vacuumed, shampooed and eventually deep-cleaned the carpet (which turned out to be beige), polished the furniture and changed his bedding (probably burning the last set). He’d come home to the cleanest room he’d seen in ages, with everything smelling of lemon Pledge and without a single tshirt on the floor or draped over his desk chair. It was unsettling.

However, what had also disappeared was the cup, the fateful Starbucks cup bearing Chev’s number. And after Louis had gone – well, after he had fallen asleep – Philippe had even rooted through the trash in despair searching for it, to no avail. He’d searched every bin in the house, and even the big recycling bins outside in the yard – still nothing. He’d knocked on Liselotte’s door at 2am demanding to know Chev’s number from her, but apparently supervisor privileges such as knowing employee’s numbers to call them into work were not to be shared with non-employees, even whiny friends, as she said much to Philippe’s disappointment.

There was nothing for it. He would have to go in and ask properly.

He stayed awake for the majority of the night, unable to sleep from the overwhelming nervous energy. Louis woke up twice and grumbled sleepily at him for ‘twitching’, but Philippe ignored him, going over and over the situation in his imagination. He’d walk up to the counter and ask for his number. No, that made him look like one of those creeps in bars who try and hit on the barmaids and touch up the waitresses when they’re working. He’d order a coffee and then ask for his number. But what if Chev had forgotten about it? If he’d originally picked up the wrong cup by mistake, and Chev’s number had in fact been intended for the pretty brunette with the dimples and the topknot? What if Chev had made the number up entirely and having Philippe call it was supposed to be Chev’s way of letting him down gently?

Philippe’s inner Liselotte smacked him around the head and told him she’d seen turkeys with more sense (something she told him often).

Eventually, when the Starbucks’ opening time of 7:45am rolled around, Philippe sprang out of bed like a jack-in-the-box and toed into his boots, unlocking the door and slamming it behind him heedless of his sleeping brother and roommates. He made a beeline for the coffee shop, narrowly avoiding getting run over by a cyclist at the first crossing he came to, and stepped across the threshold with a clear sense of purpose.

Chev smiled from behind the bar and held up a cup with his name on it.

‘Way ahead of you.’

Philippe, mental gears turning to try and work out how to solve this, nodded awkwardly and then hesitated. ‘Oh. Because I came in here with a plan, a plan that didn’t make me seem like a creepy bar perv, and now this has kind of thrown a spanner in the works because I was supposed to ask you for your number after ordering my coffee so it would be no pressure if you didn’t want to give it, because Louis got cleaners in this weekend and they threw away the other cup, the one you wrote on the first time that I hoped was for me, I mean it had my order on it but it could’ve been for anyone really, and now I can’t ask for your number because it’ll make me look like I only came in to sexually harass the staff and I’m not like that and honestly what am I even saying any more this is a disaster–’

Chev leant over the counter to press a finger to his lips, and Philippe fell silent, staring at him with wide eyes. Chev smiled, pulling his hair back into a bun with deft fingers and securing it with a hair elastic from around his wrist before walking around the bar to stand in front of Philippe.

‘How about,’ he said softly, eyes on Philippe’s, ‘instead of giving you my number, I give you… this?’

And he brought one hand up to cup Philippe’s chin, tilting his head back gently as he leaned in to press their lips together. Philippe let out a shaky breath and his eyes fluttered closed as Chev’s thumb gently caressed his cheek, his tongue prodding gently at the seam of Philippe’s lips, teasing, playing, and he opened his mouth obediently. Chev tasted of coffee and vanilla as he deepened the kiss, winding an arm around Philippe’s back to pull him closer, and they stood by the bar, kissing, for what seemed like hours before the sound of a bag dropping to the floor and Liselotte’s dry ‘Well, _finally_ ,’ broke them apart.

Philippe flushed, smiling shyly up at Chev.

‘You taste of coffee.’

Chev picked up Philippe’s drink off the collection counter and tapped it against Philippe’s nose, grinning.

‘Well, cheers.’

Philippe grinned and took a sip, relishing the flavours of coffee, spices and Chev on his tongue.


End file.
